Unplugged Rock: Hotel California on Nylon String Guitar

A classic good old song with lots of guitar parts to learn from by Eagles.

When the classic Eagles line- up ended 14 years of acrimony and muck-slinging to play two MTV reunion shows in April 1994, there were nerves behind the scenes. "We were rusty," recalls guitarist Joe Walsh of the rehearsals, in one fly-on- the-wall video interview. "We were eager to get our chops back, and to show that we weren't has-beens..."

The US rock behemoths were also ready to put their balls on the line. When the two performances were released as a live album, Hell Freezes Over, that November,the high water mark and bravest moment was the reworked acoustic version of Hotel California.

The band's ode to LA crash-and-burn had eaten the singles charts back in 1977, with the original studio cut nailed on a Fender Tele (Walsh) and Gibson Les Paul (Don Felder). Here, it found both guitarists perching on boyband stools and proceeding to sprinkle a palpable flamenco flavour over the arrangement using nylon-string classical models (with Felder's virtuoso flamenco finger style intro setting the tone).

With Glenn Frey adding chiming 12-string fills (and with the lavish Hell Freezes Over concerts recorded on 48 tracks simultaneously), this seven-minute- plus version of Hotel California is shimmer in excels is, even managing to outdo the jangle of the original. As ever, the chorus lands like a right hook, but for guitar fans, the real magic arrives in the closing minutes, as Walsh and Felder, always a fiercely competitive axe pairing square up once more in an unplugged rematch of their famous1977 duel. The Eagles had landed. Again.

Total Guitar